ABOUT US

Prolira is a high tech research and development SME and spin-off from the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Our organisation

Prolira BV has 2 founders, who together form the management team. The management team leads a technical team, a market introduction team and a clinical evaluation team, supported by an advisory board and an international clinical evaluation board consisting of three leading academic medical centers in Europe.

The management team

Rutger van Merkerk, PhD, MSc. (CEO) has a wealth of experience in the medical device market, working as a business development manager for medical devices in the University Medical Center Utrecht since 2007. He identified and managed many device development projects. He successfully managed to bring two monitoring devices from idea to market; the Evalan SensiStep and the LivAssured Nightwatch.

Annemarie Willems, MSc. (CCO) has over 20 years of marketing and sales experience in the international medical device market, always involved in realisation of innovative medical devices. With particularly long experience in planning/quoting and realization of concepts into manufactured single use products (Medisize), entrepreneurship and realization of innovative medical devices (Mount Medical).

Advisory board

Arjen SlooterArjen Slooter is Professor of Intensive Care Neuropsychiatry at University Medical Center Utrecht the Netherlands, chair of the delirium section of the American Society of Critical Care Medicine guideline committee, and president elect of the European Delirium Association. His research activities focus on delirium and on long-term neuropsychiatric outcome after critical illness or anesthesia and surgery, using both epidemiological and neuroscientific (EEG, MRI) tools. He is a clinical advisor to Prolira without any financial personal interest in the company. Any (future) profits from EEG-based delirium monitoring will be used for scientific research only.

Frans LeijtenFrans Leijten, MD, PhD. (EEG and clinical expertise) is neurologist and clinical neurophysiologist. Working most of his career with EEG based epilepsy diagnosis and epileptic surgery. He is head of the EEG department and the monitoring unit for invasisve EEG recordings at the University Medical Center Utrecht. Dr Leijten has a special interest in innovative medical companies and he contributes with his wealth of knowledge to Prolira’s EEG based DeltaScan.

Boudewijn BollenBoudewijn Bollen is advisor to Prolira. As a former senior board member of American medical monitoring device companies, he is specialized in European market introduction and market growth for novel medical monitoring parameters and devices. He played a major role in the market succes of a.o: – Aspect Medical, that developed and introduced the BIS monitor (an EEG based patient monitor to measure the depth of anaesthesia during surgery). Aspect Medical was sold to Covidien (currently Medtronic) in 2009. – Nellcor SpO2 sensor (the world’s first disposable oxygen saturarion sensor, which nowadays is part of standard vital signs monitoring in every hospital).

Clinical evaluation

The innovation is based on clinical experience and land mark research of the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) in the Netherlands, led by Dr. Slooter, Professor of Intensive Care Neuropsychiatry and his brain at risk team. The UMCU leads the groundbreaking research on which Prolira’s DeltaScan technology is based.

Market introduction

Prolira’s market introduction team first focus is N-European hospitals. The team is supported by international industry advisors with a wealth of experience in the hospital vital signs monitoring market.